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Latest comment: 8 hours ago28 comments11 people in discussion
I suspect this is a digital archive for someone, like they're using it as storage rather than other storage providers;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Atlasowa/New_video2commons/2025_June_1-10
This is the page i initially found, i was attempting to find all instances of a song and came across this, with multiple full episodes of The Amazing World Of Gumball just here.
Is this sort of thing allowed? It seems like its violating alll sorts of copyright law, but then again i see lots of videos with varying use/significance HyperNover (talk) 02:48, 30 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
With the latest information obtained by 19h00s, it is quite clear that we can't keep these videos and derivative works. So I deleted all files and closed the DR. Thanks to all for the investigation. Yann (talk) 19:05, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
All 4000+ videos posted on Cartoon Network India's YouTube channel are marked Creative Commons Attribution. These include videos of numerous cartoon franchises owned by numerous different companies (Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Ben 10, The Amazing World of Gumball, Teen Titans Go, Lamput, Kiteretsu, Grizzy & the Lemmings, Batwheels, etc.). There is no way in hell that Cartoon Network India somehow overthrew capitalism and convinced some of the most litigious media companies on the planet (Warner Brothers, DC Comics) to relinquish control of their intellectual property and give away their cartoons for free in perpetuity. Please put on your thinking caps and ask if this actually makes sense. Clearly someone somewhere has made a mistake. If you think that's unlikely, notice that they also consistently misspelled the title of Grizzy & the Lemmings. Clearly this YouTube channel has low quality control and no one has noticed the incorrect license setting. We need to do two things, neither of which I know how to do:
Totally agree with you. To me, this is ridiculous on its face. This does not appear to be a purposeful choice by the actual rightsholder, but rather a designation made by an overzealous or misinformed staffer at a foreign subsidiary, which may or may not have the legal authority to license these videos as such - and that's not a legal authority I believe we should be comfortable "assuming" they had. We need some kind of proof that this was purposeful and authorized by the rightsholder, unlike with individuals, where it's generally safe to assume that any person has the legal authority to release their own work. However, it does appear that all the shows Cartoon Network India has uploaded are in fact owned by Cartoon Network or their parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, some via other subsidiaries (for example: Grizzy & the Lemmings was produced in part by the French TV channel Boomerang, which is owned by WBD; Batwheels is property of DC Comics, which is owned by WBD; and the rights to Tom & Jerry were purchased from Hanna-Barbera by Turner Broadcasting in 1986, which merged with TimeWarner in 1996 and eventually became WBD). 19h00s (talk) 18:30, 30 November 2025 (UTC)Reply
@JWilz12345: Did you hear anything back? A faster approach might be to repost one of the videos on YouTube and see how long it takes to get it taken down with a copyright strike. My guess is less than a day. Nosferattus (talk) 06:42, 3 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure we're gonna hear back from WBD anytime soon given the news (the company is splitting its Discovery properties into a new entity and selling its Warner Bros/HBO properties to Netflix, pending regulatory approval). I imagine there's about to be a lot of work for the licensing team as they split up their content and possibly assign new IP ownership. 19h00s (talk) 16:34, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Can you think of any plausible scenario in which a staffer would mark all their videos as CC BY SA without intending to do exactly that? Trade (talk) 01:43, 8 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comment It is indeed surprising that these videos are under a free license. They should be contacted to make sure the license is valid, on YT or on https://www.facebook.com/CartoonNetwork.India/. Another possibility is to write to copyright@youtube.com (I did that). But if we don't get any answer, I don't see any reason to delete these files from Commons. There is no doubt that this is an official channel, so we do not have to make a double standard with free licenses. Yann (talk) 15:31, 4 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hi, I got an answer from YouTube which basically says: If you are the copyright holder, then send a takedown notice (with the form). It is clear that YouTube doesn't care. Yann (talk) 17:19, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps we should take the same attitude here, though unlike them I think we would do well to add a warning template about questioning the authority of Cartoon Network India to release these. Or we could just delete. But nothing else between seems to make much sense to me. - Jmabel ! talk20:32, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
If it's under CC law and Warner India released it under then it should be creative commons, so i think we should keep the files.
Also similar situation with NickRewind releasing character depictions and videos under CC, people might take advantage of this for fanworks or some weird stuff.
DR the category. Unlikely that CNI has the authority to freely license the works. The guy uploading files to YouTube would not have relicensing in his scope of employment. Glrx (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree with this due to the sheer volume of materials 'licensed' here. Though, this does make me wonder about Hasbro Australia. Sure, it's much, much less than CNI, but should we also put into question whether or not the Australia subsidiary got proper permission from the main company to freely license these materials too? Cawfeecrow (talk) 03:03, 19 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago20 comments7 people in discussion
Do we need to blur the blue mosaic tiles here? Do they present a copyright issue? (United States).
I'd appreciate just an answer rather than someone going and doing this, because I'd like to make my own aesthetic choice about how to blur. Jmabel ! talk21:33, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I was reading the US Copyright Office documents about copyrightablity last night, and ... I don't know. I guess the answer is yes, the irregular blue mosaic tiles were laid down in a pattern by the maker and that would be enough to be copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:07, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
My gut instinct was that there's no copyright issue (plain, monochromatic decorative mosaic/glass tiles embedded in concrete [?], compositionally just an arrangement of PD geometric shapes). But then my mind jumps to historical visual artists from the Washington Color School or color field more generally, including Kenneth Noland, Alma Thomas, Ellsworth Kelly, and Morris Louis; their estates' claims on copyright for historical works compositionally similar to (or sometimes even simpler than) this mosaic have never been tested in court, at least not on threshold of originality grounds, as far as I know. (not that those artists' works are in any way some kind of legal precedent, but they raise interesting questions about ToO that parallel well with this mosaic imo) --19h00s (talk) 22:28, 5 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't see a ToO issue here, as they seem to be in a random pattern, but it does raise the question of if this counts as "Work for hire" if it was more complex. All the Best -- ChuckTalk00:31, 6 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Contractors don't normally have copyright agreements in their contract, so if it was above TOO, weather or not it's a work for hire would matter. (doesn't matter here beacuse it's below TOO) All the Best -- ChuckTalk20:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Alachuckthebuck: Since the photographer has no connection to anyone with even imaginable intellectual property rights to the mosaic, I still don't see how "work for hire" would enter the picture. You seem to be dealing with a doubly hypothetical case. - Jmabel ! talk20:30, 7 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I highly doubt the pattern is copyrighted, because I think it is extremely unlikely that the person laying the tiles had the necessary intention to create an original work. It is far more likely that the tiles were placed essentially haphazardly according to the requirements of construction. The laying of tiles does not imply "some creative spark" (to use the turn of phrase from Feist). In all probability, the person who created this object put no particular thought into this pattern, and so there was no "spark." The contractors may have also walked across some floor that day and left a track of footprints, but, irrespective of the complexity of that pattern of footprints, this does not make a photograph of the room with dirt tracked on the floor subject to the contractor's copyright, because those patterns are not the product of "some creative spark."
In general, there are two ways that a work can fail the "creative spark" test.
The first, and most ironclad, is that it can be so simple that it is impossible for creative expression to be found in it. For instance, a triangle by itself is a simple geometrical shape; no matter what mental state the person drawing a triangle had, if the triangle is the only thing drawn, there is no potential for the shape itself to reflect a "creative spark."
The second way, which I think is being overlooked here, is for the pattern to have sufficient complexity as not to fall in the aforementioned category, but, due to the circumstances, not happen to reflect an active creative spark. For instance, a painting by an elephant may be very detailed, but creativity under the law means only human creativity, and so any process other than a human creative process cannot result in a copyright. Likewise, if the rain happens to erode a rock in a certain way that seems interesting to our eye, this pattern is still not a reflection of any creative spark, and so cannot be copyrighted. I would say that the incidental and unintentional byproducts of non-creative human-involved processes still fall outside of the category of "creative spark." It can be difficult to deal with this when some people may claim to have exercised creativity in even very simple items, but I don't think that most contractors performing these kinds of tasks approach them with the mindset of modern minimalist or abstract artists, and there is no reason to presume this without evidence of such intentionality. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:14, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Could somebody knowledgeable provide some more context, please? I currently can't form a (more or less) informed opinion...
What do we actually see here? The description "This brick was found on the Troll Knoll to the right of the troll and is an original Denny Renton brick." uses several catchwords, but apparently you have to be in the know to understand them. Troll Knoll? Original Denny Renton brick? What does that mean?
What are the sizes of the things here? Is the mosaic perhaps part of something made for human occupancy (this could alleviate any issues: COM:FOP US for buildings, as long as this mosaic is deemed to not be pictorial)?
@Grand-Duc "Denny Renton brick" is presumably a reference to Denny-Renton Clay and Coal Company (Q27942182), a company that produced bricks on an industrial scale. The brick itself presumably holds no copyright as it is a utilitarian object produced in the thousands/millions. "Troll Knoll" is presumably Troll's Knoll park, Seattle. Based on the park's website, the "Troll" in the file description appears to be a local sculpture in seattle described at Fremont Troll (Q1354391). I have no sepcific knowledge on this subject as I found these links through internet searches of relevant key words. From Hill To Shore (talk) 21:41, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
The Fremont Troll is probably the most famous public sculpture in Seattle, though of course there are other contenders (Calder's Eagle? The pig sculpture at the entrance to Pike Place Market?). Troll's Knoll Park is adjacent. I'll add more info & categories to the file page. - Jmabel ! talk00:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
The US copyright office does not like looking at intent. I know I'm being conservative here, but when a human puts down a pattern like this, something that is not trivial and not clearly random/natural, I tend to assume they made choices to make it aesthetic, and it is thus copyrightable. I'd point out that the Copyright Office put out a book for kids telling them to draw their favorite animal! Hey, look, now you own a copyright and could register it! Drawing lines between artists and construction workers seems to go against that idea.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:54, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think you are making a huge mistake by searching for copyrighted works where there are none. By doing so, I feel you are severely misunderstanding the nature and purpose of copyright.
Copyright law was designed to protect certain classes of creative activity. It does not apply to all human activity that might involve order (or even all human activity that involves aesthetic preference — font design, for instance is not copyrightable).
Beyond the list of types of work that are given in the Copyright Act, we can also examine what types of item have been historically copyrighted (i.e., made available with notices, especially in the era of formalities) and/or made the subject of copyright litigation.
You will not find any examples where a smattering of tiles like this has a copyright notice attached, or where litigation has taken place regarding such smatterings, because, as common as they are, society has never thought of them as copyrightable works. Accordingly, there is no reason to think that the intention of the Copyright Act was to apply to the activity of preparing a surface with this common kind of tiling.
Commons is a rare place where we go above and beyond to find copyrights, even if it would be a reasonable assumption that they wouldn't be enforced (and I think this is a good thing). But this doesn't mean every object is copyrighted and that a billion copyrights permeate everything. There is no Sword of Damocles hanging above your head where a construction worker could sue you for infringement for taking a photo of a smattering of tiles. The contribution of the construction worker, if taken to exist at all, is clearly trivial, and the law does not concern itself with such things. If it did, we would have an unsustainable system.
I don't know why you being up the example of the activity booklet explaining copyright to kids. A drawing is one of the classic kinds of artistic expression. A kid is a kid, but art by a kid is still a copyrightable work. I certainly am not here to suggest that a person can't make a copyrightable work due to being a construction worker. I am going to at the very least suggest that the execution of a construction project is not a classic example of copyrightable activity. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 12:03, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
And a mosaic like File:Brewery Court mosaic, Cirencester.jpg is not one of the classic forms of artistic expression? I'd accept that it's de minimis in Jmabel's photo, but a mosaic is definitely as copyrightable as a drawing, and a creator of a mosaic has just much rights in their work as anyone else, and I see no reason that if someone made direct commercial copies of the full mosaic, that the court would not recognize it as a copyrightable thing. A billion copyrights do permeate everything, and there's no way you can argue the pattern of the mosaic is a functional thing.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:09, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Mosaics qua tiles are not a type of copyrightable work. The Brewery Court mosaic is a copyrightable work because it is a "pictorial, graphic, [or] sculptural work," not because it is composed of tiles; it just happens to be fixed using tiles. Copyright subsists in works, not in a type of physical fixation medium.
As the Copyright Office says, a copyrightable work only exists when the following criteria are all met:
it is eligible for copyright protection in the United States
the work has been fixed in a tangible medium of expression
the work was created by a human author
if the work constitutes copyrightable subject matter [i.e., it must fall within the categories of work eligible for copyright]
the work contains at least a minimum amount of creative authorship that is original to the author.
The pattern in question is essentially a blue oval surrounded by a red ring. This in itself has no creativity whatsoever, being a classic simple geometrical shape. The object here is essentially "jigsaw" tiles. These tiles are normally produced by breaking a larger material in a random, mechanical way (and are sold that way: example). The shapes of the tiles are not the result of human creativity and are similar to the uncopyrightable random confetti pattern which the Compendium lists as uncopyrightable (906.8).
Your only argument that this is a copyrightable work is based on the notion that it is a work of graphical art because the particular shapes and arrangement of the jigsaw tiles reflect human authorship (since clearly the oval cannot). The total lack of any perceptible arrangement of these randomly cut tiles (beyond filling the oval area) makes it extremely implausible that there would be sufficient authorship here to constitute a work of graphical art. The randomly-cut tiles are only used to create a basic oval. The difference between the Brewery Court mosaic and this surface is the difference between a painted portrait and a painted wall. To argue that the tiles here constitute a work is similar to arguing that the individual brushstrokes when painting an area a solid color constitute authorship. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 06:04, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
You're the one who said "A drawing is one of the classic kinds of artistic expression". My understanding is that individual brushstrokes are what make something like File:Kazimir Malevich, 1915, Black Suprematic Square, oil on linen canvas, 79.5 x 79.5 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.jpg copyrightable. As for a wall, I suspect it would go much as the case in Europe where someone complained about a rental offer with a picture of the wall in a copyrighted wallpaper; that won't stop someone from showing pictures of the house. It would be interesting to see the court case, but I suspect a solid painted wall in the US would only be protected from reuse as postcards focused on the painting job or as wallpaper copying the painting job. A wall, unlike an outside floor surface, might also lose protection to photos as an integral part of architecture and hence falling under FoP for architecture (as opposed to a mural, which is more clearly separable from the building.) It's near the lines, but I'd have to argue that the arrangement was a willful choice and complex enough to be copyrightable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:15, 17 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
If you don't believe that a solid painted wall falls within the "narrow category of works in which the creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent" and thus "incapable of sustaining a valid copyright" (Feist), then I don't understand how you could square that with the very existence of the "creative spark" standard. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 17:55, 17 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@From Hill To Shore: The photographer is the person who uploaded it. Originally I think their organization (the volunteer group landscaping the Knoll) had posted it on Facebook. I got hold of them, there was a good bit of correspondence back and forth, I explained that it was legally simpler if the photographer uploaded it instead of me or a random member of their group. Do you really need them to go through VRT, or will you take my word (I'll forward correspondence if you like). - Jmabel ! talk00:23, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Jmabel If I'd known you were in contact with the photographer, I'd have given you a bit more time to get your arguments in order. I won't object to you restoring the file but, as you are against policy at the moment, any other editor may legitimately request speedy deletion now or in the future. To protect against future deletion, I'd recommend one of the following. 1. Use of VRT. 2. A formal undeletion discussion to preserve details of your case and obtain consensus to keep the file, which can be referenced by an admin if another speedy deletion request is received. 3. A formal deletion discussion for the same purpose as point 2. Whether you take any of these approaches is up to you; you could instead leave it to chance that the file survives a future speedy deletion request. From Hill To Shore (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
A better question is, are we as a community really willing to delete a national flag used on hundreds of Wiki pages and templates? Because that seems like the only barrier for deletion Trade (talk) 14:41, 9 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
The first (kept) image is neither {{PD-Australia}} (created in 2003) nor {{PD-USA}} (the file may have been created by a US military person, but that person does not hold any copyrigh). All three copies were at some point used in flag templates (it's the missing images category on hrwiki that got me here), that can't be the reason why we keep them or not. Ponor (talk) 15:39, 9 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Hmm. This makes it very uncertain. I would not delete an official flag of a country (or of French regions or of German Lânder), but symbols of territories may have a different legal status. Yann (talk) 16:11, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Any of the following acts are not considered Copyright infringement:
Publication, Distribution, Communication, and/or Reproduction of State emblems and national anthem in accordance with their original nature;
Any Publication, Distribution, Communication, and/or Reproduction executed by or on behalf of the government, unless stated to be protected by laws and regulations, a statement to such Works, or when Publication, Distribution, Communication, and/or Reproduction to such Works are made;
...
Reproduction, Publication, and/or Distribution of Portraits of the President, Vice President, former Presidents, former Vice Presidents, National Heroes, heads of State institutions, heads of ministries/nonministerial government agencies, and/or the heads of regions by taking into account the dignity and appropriateness in accordance with the provisions of laws and regulations.
But I don't see a freedom to modify the work. What's more, we're explicitly restricted only to reproductions that, in point a, "are in accordance with their original nature", and in point b "take into account the dignity and appropriateness". That's not really public domain, is it? JustARandomSquid (talk) 08:59, 10 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@JustARandomSquid@Howardcorn33 thanks for bringing up the matter. I just read (again) the law. It appears the template is under a wrong name/title.
There is no explicit statement that Government works are not copyrighted. Articles 41 and 42 talk about things that are really in public domain by default, and only list the following:
works that have not been embodied in tangible form; (41a)
every idea, procedure, system, method, concept, principle, findings or data despite having been expressed, stated, described, explained, or incorporated in a Work; and (41b)
tools, objects, or products that are created solely to resolve technical problems or of which form only serves functional needs. (41c)
results of open meetings of State institutions; (42a)
laws and regulations; (42b)
State speeches or speeches of government officials; (42c)
court decisions or judge provisions; and (42d)
scriptures or religious symbols. (42e)
This supposedly "PD" template for Indonesian government works relies on Article 43, which is not a PD exception clause but a clause of limitations and exceptions to copyright. By using this logic, we can infer that Indonesian government works that are not open meeting results, laws and regulations, state or official speeches, and court documents as copyrighted, but granted some free uses through the exception.
Another reference to government works having copyright is at Article 35(1 and 2): Unless agreed otherwise, the Copyright Holder to Works produced by an Author under employment of civil service institution, the one to be regarded as the Author is the government agency. In the event that the Works as referred to in section (1) is used commercially, the Author and/or Related Rights holders will receive remuneration in the form of Royalty.
One can also notice that the provisions on PD works are grouped under PART V (all about protected works and protected cultural expressions), while the government works free use provision is found under PART VI (copyright limitations).
All in all, Indonesian government works are not in public domain, but free uses are granted.
Before we even consider renaming the template, we should consider if the law actually permits derivative works. I took a look at the template's talk page and this was discussed there before. Someone apparently tried to contact the Indonesian govt but couldn't because of Gmail. Should someone here (preferably someone who knows Indonesian) send an email to the copyright office to receive clarification on if the law permits derivative works of govt portraits? – Howardcorn33 (💬) 23:58, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago22 comments7 people in discussion
The political parties in my region have sent political leaflets to my house explaining why to vote for them. Am I allowed to upload them to Wikimedia Commons or not? Any responses would be much appreciated! 11 Downing Street (talk) 17:08, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Probably not. Works which are less than 70 years old (assuming you're in the UK) are usually copyrighted (which does not mean works older than that are always free). Leaflets which contain very simple texts and images might be ok. It depends on if they're above the threshold of originality or not. --Rosenzweigτ17:33, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Firstly, thank you for responding.
One of the leaflets is just a slogan simply talking about backing free parking. Would that be allowed in the UK? There are no images, it's just a blue background. 11 Downing Street (talk) 17:41, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Try another site? I don't use any, so cannot make recommendations. An online search for "free online image sharing site" should bring up suitable ones. --Rosenzweigτ18:49, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
The text is likely not creative enough for a copyright, the Conservative Party logo is copyrighted though (it's definitely above UK ToO). Abzeronow (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
For what it's worth: you've started your activity on Commons dealing with one of the more difficult cases that arises. If you plan on continuing to upload third-party materials, you should probably read COM:THIRD. - Jmabel ! talk20:29, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, if that photograph was made by a State Dept employee of the embassy in Kyiv, then the license on Flickr is inaccurate and the State Dept-PD licensing tag is correct. Many federal US government employees are not fully aware of the way copyright applies to their work or their office/department's work and incorrectly assume the work is not automatically PD. Note that they apply the incorrect licensing tag to all of their photographs, so it is probably just a mistake/oversight in their account settings. 19h00s (talk) 13:48, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the clarification. Should I remove the comment made by FlickreviewR 2 saying the license didn't match or should I wait for an administrator to look at it? RandomUserGuy1738 (talk) 14:42, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I'd add a note to the talk page specifying why it shouldn't be deleted/why the Flickr license is wrong, and then let an admin remove the tag. Or if any admins see this conversation, they can jump in and help. 19h00s (talk) 15:38, 12 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Good catch. Thanks Nard. I hedged my bets with my comment “if that photograph was…” but I should’ve just done a reverse image search. --19h00s (talk) 12:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This image: [2], it's a satellite image of a blizzard in Durango, Chihuahua, Sonora, Arizona and New Mexico.
Under which license should I publish the photo? ಠಠ02:00, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago10 comments5 people in discussion
File:Freyberg VC Rupert Brooke 1915.jpg The photo was taken in Lemnos in 1915, which at the time was part of the Ottoman Empire and today is in Greece. I'm not sure whether the copyright status in Turkey or Greece is relevant here and I'm also not familiar enough to know when (or if) the work became PD in either country (PD-Greece doesn't exist). I see no evidence of historical publication.
I mean, no, not really. The rule on Wikimedia Commons that a file should be free in its "country of origin" as well as the United States is a community rule, not a law, and so there is no actual jurisprudence which will tell you specifically what that means. In general, the "country of origin" of a work, under the Berne Convention, is the country where it was first published (not necessarily where it was created), but it is worth mentioning that a work can be published simultaneously in multiple countries. However, it is also worth mentioning that the copyright holder of this item would have been the British government, and the British government, per PD-UKGov, disclaims worldwide rights on any materials on which its crown copyright has expired, which would apply here (irrespective of country of origin). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:51, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
@Traumnovelle If {{PD-UKGov}} applies, it doesn't matter what the copyright situation is in the US. PD-UKGov is a statement from the copyright owner that they won't enforce any residual copyrights they possess anywhere in the world. If the item retains a copyright in the US, only the copyright owner can enforce it and we have this statement from the owner saying they won't enforce it. From Hill To Shore (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 days ago5 comments5 people in discussion
At https://archive.org/details/introduction-to-programming-using-fortran/, there is a book I'm interested in uploading, but the license statement is very confusing... it appears on the second page, and states in detail the CC BY-SA 3.0 license, including a link to it... but the image attached above it is of the CC BY-NC-SA license. Of course, if the latter is the actual license, then uploading it will not be possible, but I'm not sure which license statement here is the most authoritative one considering they are right next to each other and blatantly contradictory. What should I do in this case to figure out how the work is licensed? Is it free or not? — rae5e <talk> 16:31, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Normally, ask the author, but is he the Ed Jorgensen who died three months ago? That's a strange mistake to make in a book. This webpage offers the 2020 version under the NC license, but the same mistake is inside the book. His two other books are clearly under the NC license. So, the intention was probably NC. -- Asclepias (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Irrespective of the private intention of the author, though, a release under a given license is a release under that license. Nothing prevents an author, of course, from releasing the same content with multiple licenses (such as CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 and CC BY-SA 3.0). D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:45, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Doesnt that make the BY-NC-SA 3.0 useless and unenforcable? After all every reuser can simply claim that they obeyed the CC BY-SA 3.0 instead Trade (talk) 04:05, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 5 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion
As some of you may know, the US has peculiar copyright laws relating to sound recordings. Before 1972, sound recordings were not subject to federal copyright law, and it was only in 2018 that federal law preempted state law on pre-1972 sound recordings, with very long terms (see PD-US-record).
On the other hand, as noted on PD-US-record, not all audio files are "sound recordings." In particular, audio that comes from a motion picture is part of that motion picture and subject to the usual rules for audiovisual works. So, for example, the sound of a film that was published in 1929 is in the public domain in the US (even if a phonograph record published the same year isn't), and the sound of a film that is in the public domain for some other reason (such as non-renewal) is also in the public domain in the US.
To make it clear that an audio file was extracted from a public-domain movie or similar, I've created a new template, {{PD-US-extracted-audio}}, and a corresponding Category:PD US extracted audio. The template still needs to be used in combination with another explaining why the movie it was extracted from is in the public domain, but it should help prevent any confusion with sound recordings subject to the Music Modernization Act. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 18:12, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
The first is whether a state government can hold a copyright in a "public record." It is no coincidence that the relevant cases for this issue are from Florida and California, because both these states have laws which prohibit government entities on the state level from claiming a copyright on a public record. Other states do not have such broad laws.
The second matter is the question of originality. The public records laws in Florida and California disclaim copyright that would belong to the state (or an agency of the state, or a municipality of that state) in works with subject matter which is eligible for copyright. If the item in question is not a copyrightable work (because it does not pass the modicum of creativity test), then this disclaimer of copyright never enters the picture. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 19:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it is, but the cases cited that relate to public records not being copyrightable are from Florida and California, not New York. There is no question that state government works (not edicts of government) are copyrightable in New York, and the state does claim copyrights. Even if a public record is copyrighted, however, this doesn't mean it necessarily can't be shared (indeed, there's the mention of fair use), and, indeed, there are good arguments for it being legal to share it for various purposes, even if it is subject to copyright. D. Benjamin Miller (talk) 20:01, 13 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I just took a brief look at this YouTube channel, their content is not mainly about police bodycam, but they have certainly showcased police bodycam footage in some of their videos. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 04:50, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 days ago7 comments4 people in discussion
I am in a curious situation. I asked a very kind older gentleman to make his photo of Poecilia latipunctata available to Wikimedia Commons. P. latipunctata is an endangered fish and this is likely our only opportunity to get a good quality photo (the other alternative being this).
He said he would share it. He did not understand how to upload it to his Facebook profile with the copyright information in the caption. I tried to explain how to upload it to his FlickR account with the correct license, but this proved too technical as well.
In the end he uploaded it like this and said "take it or leave it"... There is a "All rights reserved" tag, which he did not understand how to change, and a CC-BY-SA license notice in the photo itself. Can we make this work? Surtsicna (talk) 11:43, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thank you, @Pigsonthewing and @Howardcorn33. I have an original sent to me by the author via Facebook Messenger. It is probably of a lower quality because of compression. The plan was to simply crop out the watermark once the license is reviewed. Surtsicna (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I reviewed the license. There's obviously no need to stick to technicalities when the intention of the uploader is clear, even demonstrated with watermarking. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 20:14, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 4 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Works of employees of the US Congress are in the public domain. What about works of members of Congress? In particular, there are two letters concerning the Nanda Devi affair (the first two pages of this bundle, but not the remainder) which are of great historical significance. I'd like to upload them to Commons, but of course not if they're unfree. Marnanel (talk) 17:27, 14 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
If those works are created in their capacity as a member of Congress, then they are in the public domain, which sounds like the case here. On the other hand (for example) Senator Birch Bayh's many published books written while he was in office had/have no different copyright status than if he had been a private citizen. (There used to be a joke that Bayh had written more books than most Senators had read.) - Jmabel ! talk00:29, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
During my time on Wikipedia, I noticed that almost all pages of Google websites (such as w:YouTube Shorts) have screenshots from Commons with the website's interface tagged PD due to threshold of originality. Most other pages, like w:TikTok, w:Reddit and w:Pixiv use screenshots with similarly simplistic interfaces, but are tagged as fair use. Most of these do feature non-free content prominently, but it would be relatively easy to find freely licensed content (search via filters or upload own work) and upload the screenshot to Commons with the content tagged under a free license and interface tagged as PD-simple.
So why are Google websites pretty much the only ones that have free screenshots? Was there a definitive proof that Google's interfaces are below TOO (like what happened with the Cyberpunk 2077 logo)? Should I try to make and upload screenshots of the other websites with free content tagged under a free license and interfaces tagged as PD-simple or should the Google screenshots be discussed in a DR? Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 08:31, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Bitwarden is separate from Pixiv and is free software, which is why it's allowed. Reddit logo can be edited out or left with a de minimis notice. Trying to screenshot a freely licensed home page is a lost cause, since 99.9% of content is non-free. However, making a screenshot of a specific post with free/PD content should be fine, as long as the interface of the website is considered below TOO. Dabmasterars [EN/RU] (talk/uploads) 05:46, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 3 days ago3 comments2 people in discussion
I have a photo that is clearly under the purview of Template:PD-Brazil-Photo: it is a very simplistic passport photo taken in 1954, of a deceased person, available in an online database. This would make it public domain in Brazil, its country of origin. However, despite the template's suggestions, I am uncertain about how this would intersect with American law, as does a passport photo really count as "published"? PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:20, 15 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Under US court precedent, a passport photo from 1954 would be considered published because the photograph has left the custody of the photographer, pre-1978 had a very murky definition of publication, for works published in 1978 and afterwards, it is a lot more clear-cut. Abzeronow (talk) 01:15, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 23 hours ago13 comments5 people in discussion
Heute is a German television channel and website, run by a public service broadcaster. Now, I just uploaded File:Michele Singer Reiner.png, which I got from the website at this link, the domain being "heute.at". It says it is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. However, now I'm questioning if this is true... how could a German television channel have taken this picture of an American person who has probably never been to Germany? I'm not super aware of copyright laws, so please let me know if this is legit or some form of license laundering or the like. Thank you! jolielover♥talk15:20, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Comparing the photograph to others online, it was taken in 2014 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 41st Annual Chaplin Award Gala at Avery Fisher Hall in New York. It appears to be set in one of those press photographer areas; the celebrity stands in front of a screen with relevant logos and multiple photographers all take photos at the same time. There are very similar (possibly identical) images online attributed to different copyright owners, but it is hard to tell if someone is lying about being the creator or if these are from separate cameras held next to each other. In terms of copyright law, the key factor is the place of publication, not the place of creation. A German news agency may have asked a photographer in New York to take the photo and then published it in Germany - in that situation, German copyright law would apply.
Possible scenarios for this image include:
Heute commissioned one of its employees to take the photograph as part of their job and the copyright became owned by Heute from the moment of creation. In this scenario Heute has a right to release the image under a creative commons licence.
Heute commissioned a non-employee photographer to take the photograph. Ownership of the copyright will depend on the terms of the contract between Heute and the photographer. Heute may have the right to release the image under a creative commons licence.
Heute paid a press agency for the photograph. Heute will be operating under the terms of service for that press agency. Whether Heute has the right to licence the image under Creative Commons depends on the terms of that press agency.
Heute found a copy of the image from a source that released the image under creative commons. This scenario is unlikely, as Heute doesn't appear to be giving attribution to another creator. Edit - the source link mentions Media Punch, which may be sufficient attribution.
Heute obtained the image through some other method (possibly by copying a non-free image online). Heute probably wouldn't have a right to release the image under a creative commons licence.
@Jolielover @From Hill To Shore: I would not trust at all Google Image search's marking of image licenses by themselves as they tend to contradict what it actually says on the websites. For Heute.at for example, the CC BY license is completely contradicted by the website's terms of service:
The publisher reserves all copyrights and other proprietary rights to all content on the website and internet portal, in particular all accessible texts and text excerpts, graphics, photos, logos/trademarks, design, etc., including layout, software, and their contents. Users may only use the content for personal, non-public purposes. Any use of the content for other purposes (in particular commercial purposes or by publishing screenshots of the internet portal) is prohibited.
It is in the HTML you can see it by view source that's how Google indexes those images in the search filter they maybe did it just to get clicks from people using the filter REAL💬⬆20:00, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
You appear to be right there, when using inspect element the following text is technically present:
{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","contentUrl":"https:\/\/heute-at-prod-images.imgix.net\/2025\/12\/15\/ce340151-62f0-482c-8f64-f869d2df66a5.jpg?rect=0%2C65%2C3000%2C1687&auto=format","creator":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Heute.at","url":"https:\/\/www.heute.at"},"creditText":"IMAGO\/MediaPunch","copyrightNotice":"IMAGO\/MediaPunch","license":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/","caption":"Rob Reiner und seine Frau Michele sind tot.","keywords":"","acquireLicensePage":"https:\/\/www.heute.at\/impressum"}
Although I am almost certain the text explicitly written on the terms of service would matter far more than hidden away HTML in terms. This bit of code appears to be added to every photo on their website for some reason, even for content they obviously do not own the rights to, like this album cover. – Howardcorn33 (💬) 20:10, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Heute (which means Today) is a German television news program (the main news show of the ZDF chain, the Second German Television), but heute.at is something else. It is apparently a news site from Austria (notice the .at top level domain; Germany has .de). --Rosenzweigτ13:48, 17 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago6 comments4 people in discussion
Could someone take a look at the American Meteorological Society and help with telling what is vs isn’t free to use? I created {{PD-AMS}} a while ago since pre-1978 AMS copyrights were weird (some journals were copyrighted and others were not copyrighted). The AMS website has a full copyright notice and policy. That said, AMS also has a license page which talks about open access journals being published under a CC BY 4.0 license ({{Cc-by-4.0}}; Commons acceptable), creating a lot of confusion for me. For example, this peer-reviewed article, published in Weather and Forecasting two months ago, has a “Get Permission” button, which takes you to this page directly indicating it is copyrighted and you need AMS permission to even reuse it, but then it also has a “View License” button which takes you to the CC By 4.0 license page mentioned earlier.
So yeah, can someone take some time to dig into the AMS policy and see what / if anything post-1978 is free to use on the Commons under that mentioned CC BY 4.0 license? WeatherWriter (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
I am not sure that there is any contradiction here. By definition everything is copyrighted unless released into the public domain. So, everything published under the cc-by-4.0 license is copyrighted as well. The permission button is for cases when someone wants a license different from cc-by-4.0. Ruslik (talk) 19:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
According to the AMS website, "In compliance with funder access policies, AMS makes all articles freely and publicly available one year from the date of final publication. Papers accepted for publication in AMS journals can be made open access (OA) immediately upon publication..." That suggests that a lot of content is not available for one year after initial publication. After that one year has passed, we would need to see which of their four licences AMS has released the article under. Two of the licences are CC-BY licences. The other two are terms specific to AMS - I haven't looked at the terms in enough detail to see if these two AMS-specific licences are compatible with Commons.
Agree with above, the article @WeatherWriter linked above, seems to only be licensed under "AMS Default Reuse License with Open Access", and not with any CC license. I notice other articles on the site clearly have the CC license icon indicated on the page, see this article for example. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 22:01, 16 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Recognize that every individual has a federal intellectual property right to their own voice and likeness—including an extension of that right for the families of individuals after they pass away;
Empower individuals to take action against bad actors who knowingly create, post, or profit from unauthorized digital copies of them;
Protect responsible media platforms from liability if they take down offending materials when they discover them;
Ensure innovation and free speech are protected; and
Provide a nationwide solution to a patchwork of state laws and regulations by January 2, 2025.
Does this have any prospect of passing in the current Republican dominated U.S. Congress? All the sponsors are Democrats.
This would be in line with the currently discussed proposal that we would host AI representations of people only when the person depicted posts or endorses them themselves (with some disagreement among the supporters on some edge cases).
Despite involving the Register of Copyrights, it appears to be a non-copyright restriction.
Do notice a lot of carve-outs in Section (5) of the bill. They look broad enough that we could presumably host anything that would be likely to be legitimately in scope for Commons, at least according to my notion of Commons' legitimate scope. - Jmabel ! talk06:38, 17 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 day ago4 comments3 people in discussion
I recently uploaded two images created by Google Gemini; I thought they were informative; nevertheless one of them has been immediately deleted (CSD F10), without even giving me time to explain the reason.
Roe deer with a single antler, similar to that observed in 2017 in Italy
"COM:CSD F10" means "personal file by non-contributors", that looks somewhat weird when speaking about an contributor with 20k edits since 2006, indeed... But on the other hand: "inspired by" hints at the image being a potential derivative of some actual original work, so copyright concerns are valid. The roe image is actual useless AI slop warranting a DR (opened by me). Despite claiming it being somewhat of a redrawing of an actual event, the animal is impossible. Cervids have the roots for their antlers, the pedicles, sideways on their skulls, not centered. So, even if one of those roots doesn't produce an antler or of the animal already lost it (it's not uncommon, injury, sickness or nutrient deficiency are possible causes), the other will still remain at the usual place. Google Gemini must have produced a "roe unicorn" and thus a total fantasy. Regards, Grand-Duc (talk) 13:39, 17 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Pinging @Túrelio as the deletion admin. Per the deletion reason, it states it was deleted due to the "background song". Although I can't be sure since I can't see the deleted file, it's possible that only the audio is problematic while the video part itself is fine. It appears the "WP25 Anthem video" only used the deleted file's video and not its audio. Thanks. Tvpuppy (talk) 00:11, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Even if only non-problematic video was used, the licence will probably have required attribution, but the sole attribution in the list of credits was the link to that file (all other fields in that entry are empty). So with the file deleted, there is no more valid form of attribution, creating a licence violation (unless the original was public domain). – McDutchie (talk) 01:01, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 22 hours ago2 comments1 person in discussion
I'm proposing that {{PD-Philippines}} be given some sort of cutoff, so that image files of unregistered pre-November 1972 works first published in the Philippines must use {{PD-Philippines-1972}}. This is in accordance with non-retroactive current PH copyright regime (since 1972) as per COM:Philippines#General rules. Thousands of files must be retagged.
PD-Philippines will focus on post-November 1972 PH-published works (like old photos, movies, paintings, poems, novels, and more) going forward, as well as pre-1972 registered works. We must be systemic and objective in correct license tags even to public domain objects, just like what is being done for images first published in the US (e.g. {{PD-US-expired}}/{{PD-US-no notice}}/{{PD-US-not renewed}}).
Looking at the 1879 copyright law of Spain that prevailed in the Philippines from 1879 to 1924, while Article 36 states works have to be registered to enjoy the 80 years of copyright protection (Article 6 for the duration), Article 37 seems to provide a worrying provision:
Los cuadros, las estatuas, los bajos y altos relieves, los modelos de arquitectura o topografía, y en general todas las obras del arte pictórico, escultural o plástico quedan excluidas de la obligación del Registro y del depósito. No por ello dejan de gozar plenamente sus propietarios de todos los beneficios que conceden esta ley y el derecho común a la propiedad intelectual."
Translated as (Google Translate): "Paintings, statues, bas-reliefs and high reliefs, architectural or topographical models, and in general all works of pictorial, sculptural, or plastic art are excluded from the registration and deposit requirements. However, their owners continue to fully enjoy all the benefits granted by this law and common law regarding intellectual property."
It means every Philippine monument, sculpture, and painting erected or unveiled from 1879 to 1924 became protected for a period of life + 80 years [!!!]. Per our copyright office's article on intellectual property history of the country, Article 13 of the Treaty of Paris explicitly respected the existing copyright secured by the Spaniards.
The only hope is if Act 3134 of 1924 shortened the copyrights of all existing Philippine monuments and artworks from 1879 to 1924. Default term for works registered under the era of the 1924 law is 30 years from registration date.
It's worth noting, though, that Section 3.1 of the IPOPHL Memorandum Circular on public domain works explicitly states that "works created prior to 14 November 1972 that were not registered or the registrations of which were not renewed prior to such date, whether the author is alive or deceased" are in public domain, as well as "works created prior to 14 November 1972 that were registered or the registrations of which were renewed: Provided, that the author has died and more than 50 years has elapsed from said death." Did the current rules on PD finally overwrite Article 37 of the repealed 1879 Spanish law (which "continue to be respected" by the American Insular regime courtesy of the Treaty of Paris)?
I withdraw my nomination. Withdrawing the discussion. I think I can safely assume that we can ignore the 1879 law's Article 6 and Article 37 provisions after all. It's most likely that by this year, 99% of the artists who designed the Philippine monuments and paintings from 1879 to 1924 are already dead for more than 80 years. Not a big deal anymore. Apologies for the pings. JWilz12345(Talk|Contributions)15:48, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
And lastly, I almost forgot. If ever the Spanish-era copyrights on 1879-1924 pictorial, sculptural, and plastic works remained after 1924, they would fall out of copyright sooner anyway, since the shorter 50-year term (courtesy of Presidential Decree 49) would be applied to all of these "copyrighted works" anyway. JWilz12345(Talk|Contributions)15:56, 18 December 2025 (UTC)Reply
This section is resolved and can be archived. If you disagree, replace this template with your comment. 15:48, 18 December 2025 (UTC)
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Comment It is indeed surprising that these videos are under a free license. They should be contacted to make sure the license is valid, on YT or on https://www.facebook.com/CartoonNetwork.India/. Another possibility is to write to copyright@youtube.com (I did that). But if we don't get any answer, I don't see any reason to delete these files from Commons. There is no doubt that this is an official channel, so we do not have to make a double standard with free licenses. Yann (talk) 15:31, 4 December 2025 (UTC)
Info The relevant ToO is Australia, which is low. Abzeronow (talk) 04:17, 9 December 2025 (UTC)
Roe deer with a single antler, similar to that observed in 2017 in Italy
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I withdraw my nomination. Withdrawing the discussion. I think I can safely assume that we can ignore the 1879 law's Article 6 and Article 37 provisions after all. It's most likely that by this year, 99% of the artists who designed the Philippine monuments and paintings from 1879 to 1924 are already dead for more than 80 years. Not a big deal anymore. Apologies for the pings. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contributions) 15:48, 18 December 2025 (UTC)
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